Saturday, January 26

Imagine an economic distortion so massive that its effects dwarf those of all existing tariffs, quotas, and subsidies. This distortion is relatively new and inarguably regressive; created by policy makers in wealthy countries such as the United States, Sweden, and Japan, it keeps people in Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Guatemala earning fractions of what they otherwise might for the same work. Some of the poorest people in the world are hit hardest, and the policy further impoverishes the poor while reducing economic opportunities for the rich.

Here in the United States we call this distortion “border control.”

As Lant Pritchett says,

I’ve never understood a view of the world in which the place in which a person was born becomes the key factor in whether you care about them.